Electronic Engineering Notation Tutorial

The Greek letter Omega is an electronic engineering symbol for resistance.

Electronic engineers use the basic principles behind electrical engineering (resistance, capacitance, amps) to develop new technologies known to the general public as electronics. They manipulate electron movement to generate electricity that is used as the power behind their machines' functions. These machines range in function from mp3 players to computers to communication devices. When electronic engineers are designing and developing new machines, they will often use shorthand notation or symbols to represent commonly used words and concepts.

Instructions

1. Write long numbers (over 2 digits) using scientific notation. Write the first digit of the number followed by a period, then include 3 or four of the next digits. Write after this "x 10," and include an exponent on the number ten which refers to how many places the decimal must be moved to create the original number.

   For example, if the number you are trying to write is 63,400,000, this would read "6.34x10^7" in scientific notation.

2. Use symbols for commonly used electronic pieces when sketching out a circuit diagram. Use the jagged line for a resistor and a series of 3 parallel lines to represent a grounded circuit.

3. Use abbreviations for units when writing out equations. Write "A" for amperes, which refers to the amount of electric current in a circuit. Write the Greek letter Omega for "Ohms," which refers to the amount of resistance in a circuit. Use "W" for watts, which is the amount of power in a circuit. Coulombs, for charge, can be written as "C."

4. Write prefixes for large numbers when writing them in sentence format. These include such prefixes as milli-, deci- and centi-, and they are a way for scientists to communicate the power used on the ten in scientific notation. For example, 1x10^-3 meters is one millimeter. Refer to the following chart for prefix use:

   10^9 = exa-

   10^6 = giga-

   10^3 = kilo-

   10^-3 = milli-

   10^-6 = micro-

   10^-9 = nano-

5. Refer to resistor values by using the colors banded on the body of the physical piece when constructing an actual circuit. Turn the resistor so that the gold or silver band on the end is on the right-hand side. Match the colors of the first three bands with their corresponding tolerance values and multipliers.

References

• La Sierra University: Electronics Fundamentals
• Van Roon, Tony. Capacitor's Tutorial.
• Princeton University: Electrical Engineering

Resources

• Cake, Aaron. Schematic Symbol Reference.
• British Columbia DX Club: How to read Resistor Color Codes